I have reached my breaking point

Many of you have been asking for an update on what we are doing with our lives, and I've been putting off answering because  . . . well . . . we don't really have any answers yet.  When we moved into this apartment Larry was just about to finish his fellowship and flying all over the place for job interviews, and we figured it wouldn't be long before we were settled somewhere so we found a small apartment with a nice landlord who agreed to let us lease month to month and we hunkered down for what I thought would be a couple months, tops.  We sent most of our belonging to storage, but it didn't matter, it wouldn't be long, right?  I remember saying that if we still lived here for Halloween I would be really sad because I wouldn't have the space to throw a party and all of my decorations would be in storage along with my sewing machine.  Larry said he was sure I didn't need to worry about that.  Christmas in this apartment didn't even occur to me.  Decorations, winter coats and boots, down comforters, bigger clothes for Ollie and Creed: all in storage.

Well, now it's been almost seven months and things are . . . the same.  Larry's had some offers, but he's still interviewing, and it doesn't look like he's going to make a decision anytime soon. Luckily, his research team at the U has let him stay on as a consultant, and he's picked up some moonlighting shifts so we are doing ok, but this is not how I imagined life after supporting him through nine years of medical training.

About a month ago, after an awful grown-up neighbor taunted Creed to tears, I reached my breaking point.  I cannot control Larry's job situation, but I cannot live in this tiny apartment any longer! Ollie still wakes up several times a night and we can't let him cry or the neighbors complain (the very same neighbors who made Creed cry, but let's not get into that one), and I hate for the landlord to have to deal with that when he did us a favor by letting us have a month-to-month lease.  We have no yard for the boys to play in.  Larry has to haul all of our laundry to the laundromat which takes ages.  Ollie makes a mad dash to the furnace and water heater, which are exposed in our hallway, every time I set him down because he is fascinated by the flames and the pipes, which is terrifying.  We don't have any extra storage space so it's impossible to put everything away; I'm constantly tripping over everything and hiding Christmas gifts is a joke. And did I mention that Ollie doesn't have a room?  He's nine months old and he sleeps in a pack-and-play that we shuffle from room to room and he doesn't even have a dresser, he just has a couple of messy plastic bins I threw into the back of Creed's closet.  I'm definitely feeling some mom guilt over that one.

We need to move.

So we started looking for a house to rent, but that's difficult when you can't commit to at lease a year-long lease.  In fact, if you want to live in a decent house in a safe neighborhood, it's nearly impossible.
After walking through several options that make me cringe, we have found a new apartment.  It's a shared house and the apartment isn't much bigger than where we live now, which I'm not excited about, but it has a long list of benefits: the boys will have a yard, we will have a garage, there's an unfinished basement to stow away the extra things we need on hand, there's a washer and dryer in the basement, I won't have to roll the dishwasher across the kitchen and hook it up to the sink, it's only one block away, there's not a furnace in the hallway, it's just been completely remodeled so everything is brand new, the landlords seem really nice, AND it was the one and only decent place we found that would let us have a shorter lease.

So now we are moving.  This week.  And I am in charge of a bunch of things for Enrichment Tuesday night.  And I am sick.  And my mom is out of town.  And Larry's step dad is having surgery so his mom will be busy.  And we have not packed a single box yet. And we have not called any of the utility companies. And we have not reserved a moving van.  And there is a foot of fresh snow outside. And I'm am feeling a little sick about the whole thing because moving to a new apartment is like admitting to myself that I don't see Larry accepting a job anywhere in the near future, and things are going to continue to be uncertain around here.

And that's my whiny, blogging-at-2-a.m.-update.

I better get to bed because things always look better in the morning, right?